Google smart speakers can now recognise your voice

Last week, Google began rolling out a feature to remedy the situation in households with a shared Google Home unit: up to six people can now connect their accounts to a unit and upon a brief training period, have the speaker recognize each person's voice independently. Google Home can then deliver each individual's commute times, calendars, playlists, and so on without a mixup.

To do this, users will need the latest Google Home app to get started. Then, look for a card that says “multi-user is available” and if that can't be found, click the icon in the upper right to locate connected devices, and make sure to link your account.

Google asks you to train your voice by saying the phrases, “Ok Google” and “Hey Google” twice each. The way Google explains it, the phrases are analyzed by a neural network which can detect certain characteristics of each voice. From then on, any time you say "Ok Google" or "Hey Google" to your Google Home, the neural network will compare the sound of your voice to its previous analysis to determine if it is you speaking or not, a comparison Google claims takes place in a matter of milliseconds.

A few things to keep in mind: If you have more than one Google Home in your house, you'll have to set up each one independently even if you share the same network; voice training is local to the device. The feature doesn't work on smartphones that incorporate the Google Assistant either, though phones of course are more personal anyway.